Architecture
Ancient Rome – An Important Precinct of Power and Glory
During the reign of Augustus (31BC – 14ACE) Rome emerged as an economically successful city with a population approaching one million. To become a free citizen of Rome was considered a great honour.
Whoever you were if you were born within the boundaries of the Roman Empire you had the right to hold the highest office in the State. Under Augustus the concept of an eternal Rome emerged, revealing its link to the legendary past and its promise of a new era.
La Tour d’Argent, the Terrail family and the Art of Pleasure
[Entrance-La-Tour-d'Argent] ‘To be a Frenchman and a restaurateur means to fight for your country and its wine’ declared a youthful Claude Terrail (1917 – 2006), when he left his air force unit in Lyon on May 12 in the year 1940 to make a dramatic dash to help Gaston Masson, the manager of his father André’s world famous restaurant, La Tour d’Argent (The Silver Tower) at Paris, save one of the greatest wine cellars in the world.
Classic Architecture, is it more than a Column?
Classical architecture reflects the very nature of a society, its attitudes and philosophies, fashion and passions. It provides us with an insight into the cultural development of ancient Greece and Rome at any given time in their history.
Ancient Greek Art – A Meeting of the Human with the Divine
Greek sculpture was the first, the only ancient art to break free from conceptual conventions, for that of representing men and animals. Artisans wanted to explore consciously how art might imitate nature, or even improve upon it. There was no conscious striving towards realism at first, especially until it was understood to be a possible and desirable goal. This began six centuries before the Christ event.
Bibliotheca Alexandrina – Faces, Muses, Arts and Culture
The Bibliotheca Alexandrina, or new library of Alexandria was inspired by the enormous repository of knowledge lost when the ancient library caught on fire during a battle with Roman General Julius Caesar and burned to the ground. This all-new library of Alexandria opened its physical doors to the world in 2002. Since then it has become an important focal point for the sharing of knowledge as a practical means of aiding an understanding between world cultures.
Australia – Culture in the Colonies
Captain Arthur Phillip laid the foundation stone of Australia’s first government house within four months of sailing into Port Jackson on January 26 1788 with the first fleet. Against a background of a natural environment its indigenous inhabitants had never disturbed, at the time, it was an assertion of culture in the colonies.
Le Corbusier – The International Style
Swiss born Charles-Edouard Jeanneret (1887-1965) was 29 when he went to Paris. Soon after his arrival he adopted his maternal grandfather’s name, Le Corbusier, as a pseudonym. He changed his persona from Jeanneret the small-town architect to Le Corbusier the world’s next visionary artist. He expressed a view that architecture had lost its way. He was convinced the bold new industrial age dawning required an audacious style of architecture. Who better to design it than himself. “We must start again from zero,” he proclaimed.
Arts & Crafts Movement – William Morris the Art that is Life
In England, during the second half of the nineteenth century, painter, writer, textile designer and social activist William Morris (1834-1896) became the spiritual leader of a revival in arts and crafts that encompassed all the visual arts, including architecture and interiors.
Three Wise Men – Achieving Celebrity Status
January 6 the climax of the Christian Twelve Days of Christmas celebrates The Epiphany when three wise men brought gifts of Gold Frankincense and Myrrh to the baby Jesus. But why?
Crystal Clear – New age Chandeliers both Colourful and Green
For seventeen centuries in Europe lighting was extremely difficult. It is hard for us to imagine how dark it was indoors in most houses, which were in the main only well lit on special occasions. Under normal light a room was seen in shadows, good wax candles were expensive, with tallow candles and rush lights smelly, quickly consumed or both. Until the invention of the ‘argand oil lamp’, and later ‘electric’ light, all classes and members of society were placed at a distinct disadvantage in ordering their daily lives.
Palladio – In Pursuit of the Perfect House
A villa by architect Andrea Palladio was a place where the owners could feel happy, secure and content, which is after all, what most of us still require and aspire to, a place where one can cultivate the head, heart, body and the soul.
A Passion for Gothic Decoration
The decorative arts were never considered secondary by Augustus Welby Pugin. As an architect he might design the structure of a house, church or institution, but he conceived of the building, its fittings and furnishings as a ‘complete work of art.’
Horace Walpole’s Legacy at Strawberry Hill nearby the Thames
At the time of Jane Austen’s birth on the sixteenth day of December 1775, Horace Walpole, 4th Earl Orford (1717- 1797) was using decorative ornament inspired by a literary and pictorial interest in Gothic architecture at Strawberry Hill, his villa nearby the Thames at Twickenham in the London borough of Richmond.
Fashion, is it more than a Frock?
From skinny self sacrificing super models to those demanding the use of ‘real people’, costume accommodates a desire to be noticed. It is the look at me, look at me syndrome, which has been in play for thousands of years. Today it collectively reflects a western society in which privacy has been stripped completely bare. But is fashion about more than a frock?
A ‘Compleat’ Gentleman, more than a leader of style
In London much of the development in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century was in the hands of aristocratic landowners. But were they ‘compleat’ gentlemen?
Downton Abbey, upstairs and down for the new gen and new age
From our London correspondent comes news about an exciting television series Downton Abbey, the most expensive British TV show ever produced. It is a great upstairs and downstairs story about life in an English Country House just prior to world war one, The dynamics of the people who live and work in Downton Abbey draw everyone into their emotional turmoil, one mostly internalized by its protagonists against their wellbeing. They are responding to the strict social and moral mores of their day which are under threat by massive societal change…
Asides
Watch our free video
